Monday, August 13, 2012

Gaza Terrorists Now Use Sinai As Practice For Rockets And Mortars

According to an Israeli defense official, the Gaza arsenal currently amounts to 10,000 rockets, the more powerful of which reach 70 km (44 miles), enough to hit Tel Aviv.Reuters

One of the excuses used by the pro-Palestinian apologists for the rockets fired out of Gaza by terrorists at Israeli civilians is that since the rocket are not well aimed and there are so few casualties, it's not really such a big deal.

Apparently Gazan terrorists are doing their very best to make it a big deal.

It was soon after the 2011 revolt in Egypt toppled President Hosni Mubarak that Israeli rocket radars began to spot unusual launches from the Palestinian territory, which Israel keeps under a land, sea and air cordon.

Normally they streaked towards Israeli border towns, or north towards coastal cities. But now some were aimed at the empty desert wastes of Sinai.

The purpose seemed clear: to test rockets made or smuggled in by Palestinian groups who do not have space for a practice range.

"They have a Bedouin collaborator in Sinai who finds the crater and marks it by GPS," an Israeli official told Reuters on condition of anonymity, describing a low-tech but effective method of tracking test-firings from Gaza.

This is an advance over other techniques Palestinian terrorists have used in the past to target their victims. One method they used was to monitor Israeli media and police channels after they fired a rocket and then use Google Earth to gauge the range and accuracy of their weapons.

The previous site used by the terrorists for practicing and assessing their rockets was to fire them into the Negev--which is an advantage for Israeli intelligence over firing into the Sinai.

Rockets fired into the Negev could be studied by Israel as well and allow Israel to see what was being planned in preparation for future terrorist attacks by studying the trajectory and debris. Now that the rockets are being fired into the Sinai, the debris is out of reach.

Truth be told, Reuters does seem a bit too enthusiastic about this whole topic. At one point, Dan Williams and Douglas Hamilton write:

Thanks to advances in Gaza's underground munitions industry and smuggling of military grade rockets from Sinai, ranges have increased and crews need observable impact sites during tests.

Reading this, you'd never know we were talking about terrorists who were targeting innocent civilians in violation of international law.

But Israel does.

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